The work setting I would be working on is a career counseling setup up. Realizing that most young people have found it difficult to find their career path, I have found it important to engage a group of young people to ensure that they understand the importance of choosing a career that befits their interest. In their prime years of career development, young people face it difficult to choose the career that befits their qualification (Zunker, 2006). This is mainly due to lack of knowledge on the process of career choice. They are not well empowered to choose career that befits their strengths. Therefore, in this particular exercise, I will work with a group of young people from different cultural backgrounds where I will counsel them on career choice. I will look into the appropriate theories of career counseling to engage the young people using the most appropriate framework. I will use two main theories, systems theory framework and social learning theory of career decision making.
The Systems Theory Framework (STF) can be defined as a theoretical foundation that accounts for the best system of influence on people’s career development that include individual, social, and environmental/societal contexts (Zapuzzi & Stauffer, 2005). It is one of the most important theories that can be used to approach multicultural career counseling. This theory has been used by career counselors to expand their roles and level of intervention especially in multicultural career counseling. Through the use of this theory, counselors are in a position to analyze elements of social, personal, and economic situation within which individuals operate and how they elements relates to the larger systems. This means that this theory examines interconnections between internal and external variables that impacts on individual careers.
On the other hand, social learning theory of career decision making (SLTCDM) integrates practical ideas, research, and procedures to provide analysis of the reasons why people pursue a given career. This theory mainly focuses on teaching clients decision-making alternatives and makes use of the concept of triadic reciprocal interaction. The main ways in which counselors can use this theory is for reinforcement and modeling (Zapuzzi & Stauffer, 2005). This theory therefore helps the counselor to identify and correct the incorrect beliefs about careers that are held by clients in careerdecision making process. It helps to explain why people enter into a given job, why and how they change career direction in line, why they express given preferences for a given career and others.
Both theories are similar in the sense that they are used to help individuals make career choice. They are important framework that helps individuals to evaluate their strengths and weakness in careers and make appropriate choice. However, they differ in a number of aspects. While STF looks into interconnections between internal and external variables, SLTCDM looks into factors that influence career decision making.
In light of my group of multicultural young people, the two theories are important in helping them to understand their strengths in different careers. STF helps them to understand the interconnection between their internal and external variables relating to career choices to understand the career that befits this interconnection. (Zunker, 2006) On the other hand, SLTCDM can help the young people to understand the process they should go through before deciding on their career of choice. One of the major weaknesses of STF is that it fails to consider the ability of the individuals to integrate internal and external variables instead focusing on how the variables fit into individual. On the other hand, SLTCDM fails to consider the strengths of the individual person in career choice but rather focuses on the process alone.
For my group of choice, I would use STF to help them understand the strengths and weakness of their internal and external variables and understand how they can use them to make their career choice. Once they have identified the internal and external variables, I would use SLTCDM to help them follow the right decision making process.
In my assignment above, I have taken a group of young people coming from diverse backgrounds. I have used two theories, The Systems Theory Framework (STF) and social learning theory of career decision making (SLTCDM) to help the young people understand their career choices. Through the two theories, I will be in a position to assist the group of young people to learn important factors pertaining to their career choice.
The main reason why I have chosen this group of people is because they are faced with a major challenge in their career choice. More than other people, young people find it difficult to make career choice because they are not aware of what differentcareers require (Walsh & Osipow, 2004). They find it difficult to measure their strengths and weakness in relation to the different careers at their disposal. Therefore, my interest in this group is to empower them with appropriate knowledge that can assist them to make career choices.
The main reason why I selected the two theories is because of their strengths in helping individuals to choose the best career that befits their strengths and weaknesses. The two theories have been used in counseling set up to help young people understand what pertains career choice and most important what they have to consider before choosing their career. I would use STF theory to help individuals understands their career and the internal and external variables that are related to that particular career. On the other hand, I would use SLTCDM to help individuals make decision that are most appropriate with their career choice.
